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Comments by Mango


51. Pakistan blocks YouTube over blasphemous video

Comment #133152 by Mango on February 25, 2008 at 5:48 pm

In agreement with comment #2, there are thousands of videos that devout Muslims will find offensive. It's bizarre that Pakistan would block the website because of one video in particular rather than the whole concept of user-generated content [free speech] in particular.

52. How he was sentenced to die

Comment #132758 by Mango on February 25, 2008 at 7:26 am

The British schoolteacher in Sudan who named a teddy bear Muhammad; the young woman in Saudi Arabia who was gang-raped and convicted of being alone with a man who was not a family member; and now this case.

Seems there is always at least one cause celebre in the news that draws the distinction between secular and sharia law. The Western countries can petition for the acquittal of a few cases here and there, but the brutality of sharia is endemic.

I anticipate that the justice and value systems of secular and Islamic countries will continue to diverge and these tragic cases will only become more intolerable to those who care about human rights.

53. Ayaan Hirsi Ali asks for protection

Comment #128101 by Mango on February 16, 2008 at 7:09 am

comment 30 I would not stand between AHA and harm. I suspect those who claim they would are just attempting to seem heroic and manly."


Perhaps Hitchens was overestimating the solidarity of his audience. I can only speak for myself, of course. I have neither children nor a wife to think of when considering danger to myself. And one can never be certain how one will react in a crisis until it comes. That being said, I do intend to intervene whether it is AHA who is being set upon by thugs, or anyone else who is in danger from those who seek to violently dispossess people from their freedom of speech.

54. Ayaan Hirsi Ali asks for protection

Comment #128091 by Mango on February 16, 2008 at 5:47 am

Tetratornis comment 12 I believe the exact quote involved taking bullets.


I spun up the DVD of the speech to uncover whether my memory from that day was mistaken. The quote is, "There isn't anyone in this room who wouldn't very proudly stand between you and anyone who wished you harm."

55. Ayaan Hirsi Ali asks for protection

Comment #127958 by Mango on February 15, 2008 at 7:48 pm

As Christopher Hitchens said at the AAI meeting in the autumn, any of us would get between her and anyone who intended to do her harm. Lacking that opportunity, however, I'm happy to contribute monetarily to her protection.

56. Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Comment #127508 by Mango on February 15, 2008 at 10:59 am

Annabanana, not to belabor the details, but in reply to elfinabout all you did in fact say was "elfinabout, maybe calm down with the conspiracy theories?" That short, unenlightening dismissal was I was referring to, not later on when as you say you ". . .replied, in detail"

Please don't assume that I'm just playing "the gender card".


I didn't think I assumed anything when you wrote
"I genuinely wonder what the response to my comments would be like if my avatar were something genderless or even a picture of a guy... "

But I realize you do have to watch out for people who make assumptions about you based upon your avatar, and I'm wholly sympathetic to that. But in this thread, today, I think your avatar has played no role.

57. Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Comment #127475 by Mango on February 15, 2008 at 10:31 am

al-rawandi - Is that Sly Stallone as your avatar?


Close, Dean Martin

58. Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Comment #127469 by Mango on February 15, 2008 at 10:26 am

comment 27 annabanana - I genuinely wonder what the response to my comments would be like if my avatar were something genderless or even a picture of a guy...


I'm not wondering. In comment 11 you tell the author of the book to "shut up" because the article isn't telling you if the book contains any remedies. In comment 15 you refer to elfinabout's thoughtful post as a "conspiracy theory" and recommend he "calm down." In comment 17 you call yourself "attractive." No, I'm not wondering at all -- I think your words would elicit the same replies regardless of the avatar you displayed. Few, if any, regular posters on this website are more roundly respected than Paula Kirby. I suggest you closely read how she communicates before you decide to play the gender card.

59. Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Comment #127426 by Mango on February 15, 2008 at 9:14 am

comment 11 annabanana If you aren't going to offer some sort of solution or be part of a solution, then shut up.


We are not told from the article whether her analysis of the situation includes prescriptions for change. Regardless, what's wrong with an indictment of a cultural situation that delves into the depth and ubiquity of a perceived problem and leaves the answers for another book? Certainly her work has value either way and your rude off-the-cuff dismissal seems out of line.

60. Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Comment #127394 by Mango on February 15, 2008 at 8:24 am

My girlfriend is a graduate student in America and I chide her every time I see her on a ridiculous gossip webpage. She's simply a woman of her times -- she has an innate intelligence but is swept up in the rot of popular culture.

Intellectuals, and intellectualism, are not American values. There are too many distractions for people to turn to to avoid thinking. Thinking and intellectual self-improvement are hard work, and most people avoid it.

Look at the American presidential race. The talking heads on TV say something like, "Obama won South Carolina with 90% of the black vote." The next level of analysis, such as why people cast their precious vote on the basis of a phenotype, might as well be string theory.

61. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Madeline Bunting

Comment #126920 by Mango on February 14, 2008 at 1:51 pm

Wonderful tactic -- one doesn't have to answer what one believes by asserting that the word "belief" doesn't apply to what one believes!

62. Exorcism undergoes a revival across Europe

Comment #125853 by Mango on February 12, 2008 at 7:11 am

People possessed by demons "speak in exotic tongues"


It's normal for people who attend churches in my area to speak in tongues -- are they all possessed by demons?

63. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #125546 by Mango on February 11, 2008 at 3:14 pm

The entire interview is worth watching, if you are able to find it somewhere on the Web.

64. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125502 by Mango on February 11, 2008 at 1:26 pm

Bonzai, comment 8, Dr. Dawkins mentions a "mandatory retirement age." But the silver lining is that he is perhaps freer to express himself w/o having to worry about any possible negative reflections on Oxford.

65. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125365 by Mango on February 11, 2008 at 9:32 am

Regarding that Conservapedia entry, endowed professorships are indeed filled with full professors who simply have a position that is, well, endowed. The name of the endowment precedes their normal title as a sort of modifier, e.g. The John Doe Professor of Anthropology. Most universities in the U.S. have these endowments in various departments and these professors are quite distinguished.

66. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125341 by Mango on February 11, 2008 at 9:01 am

I'm surprised an enlightened university such as Oxford still has a mandatory retirement age. In America those rules have generally been abolished.

67. Exorcism undergoes a revival across Europe

Comment #125326 by Mango on February 11, 2008 at 8:35 am

Exorcists said they are careful not to treat people suffering from mental illness


How does one act differently when one is possessed by a demon as opposed to being mentally ill?

"How else can you explain how a wife, in the space of a couple of weeks, could come to hate her own husband, a man who is a good person?"
Hmmmmm...I wonder... coughRAPE.... Lemme think...coughBEATINGS.... It's coming to me... coughGAMBLING... Nope, nothing comes to mind. She must be a pawn of Lucifer, no question about it.

68. Hitchens and Boteach Debate on God

Comment #125074 by Mango on February 10, 2008 at 10:25 pm

The more Mr. Boteach spoke the more rope he was making to hang himself intellectually.

The flailing and flapping arms only added to his caricature of a caricature.

"You asked for white noise and you got it." - Hitchens to the moderator

69. Hitchens and Boteach Debate on God

Comment #125056 by Mango on February 10, 2008 at 8:51 pm

Mr. Boteach is willfully ignorant or willfully mendacious. He accepts that humans and chimpanzees share 98% of our genes but in the next breath says "so what, watermelons and jelly fish are both 98% water." Of course that is not a valid analogy -- we are discussing DNA, not water content of inter-cellular tissues.

70. Battle of the Chambersburg billboards

Comment #124775 by Mango on February 10, 2008 at 7:52 am

When asked about the question, "Why do atheists hate America?" Nedd gave a quick reply: "That's what we're trying to figure out. We don't know the answer."


What a piece of deductive reasoning! This fella just has a hunch that atheists hate America, and then he tries to find the evidence. But in the meantime, he pastes his deduction on a billboard for the world to see. This man has the cerebral yield of an average ground mole.

71. The New Atheist Movement

Comment #123437 by Mango on February 7, 2008 at 6:59 am

In my experience in American universities professors do not attack religion directly. The swipes are indirect, with references to the depth of geologic time, evolution, culture studies, anthropology, psychology, so on. In short, becoming educated is not ineluctably liberalizing, but education does make one more wary of spectacular religious claims and this then tends to place a person in the politically liberal camp, if conservatism is defined by religious adherence.

And indeed, this is why places like Liberty University exist -- to essentially block the transmission of any knowledge that could free a mind while still imparting "a university education."

72. The New Atheist Movement

Comment #123240 by Mango on February 6, 2008 at 4:58 pm

The Campus Crusade for Christ has existed for 57 years and is on over 1,000 campuses. That the Christians are STILL nervous about their children's minds should be encouraging to the forces of reason.

73. The New Atheist Movement

Comment #123180 by Mango on February 6, 2008 at 2:48 pm

The guy towards the end is right -- there ARE very good reasons why American Christians believe what they believe. It has to do with memes, cultural diffusion, inculcation, and so on. Black Americans who are Christians also have a very good reason -- they adopted the religion of their oppressors. Should they then teach their children that to steel their minds against atheism?

74. An Altar Beyond Olympus for a Deity Predating Zeus

Comment #122486 by Mango on February 5, 2008 at 10:40 am

Why is there a seemingly universal human (particularly male) need to be right? That is, why can't a person have his own God(s) while accepting that the god(s) of others exist as well -- what is called henotheism. In that way these interesting "pre Zeus" religions might still be around.

75. Atheists to celebrate at Darwin Day in Coconut Creek

Comment #121833 by Mango on February 4, 2008 at 8:08 am

Evolution and atheism -- the more tenaciously the public associates one with the other, the more difficult it will be to get evolution taught in public schools in America.

That being said, it is not only science (e.g. evolution) that can naturally lead to atheism. A general knowledge of cultural anthropology or history can inform one adequately enough that he/she recognizes the spatio-temporal cultural consequences of his/her birth.

Reason, not science in general nor evolution in particular, ought to be what one associates with a lack of unsupported beliefs.

76. Are Darwin's Theories Fact or Faith Issues?

Comment #120183 by Mango on February 1, 2008 at 10:15 am

Dr. Simmons read an article in Scientific American about the evolution of whales -- he devoted literally minutes and minutes to researching this subject. And he seems so confident in his depth of knowledge. Pathetic.

77. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #117420 by Mango on January 28, 2008 at 6:59 pm

The interviewer's leading questions clearly outline his biases. Pathetic journalism.

78. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116707 by Mango on January 27, 2008 at 7:46 am

I mention the knee-jerk reactions by posters who simply mention circumcision has religious roots and seem to believe that can be damning. I wrote particularly in response to dlitt in comment 52 who wrote "Its origins are completely religious" and then hit the return key. I'm sorry you cannot see my point.

79. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116626 by Mango on January 26, 2008 at 9:23 pm

dlitt: Its only purpose is to assist in numbing the 'sinful' pleasures of sex and make masturbation more difficult.


My Chinese in-laws all circumcise their sons not for religious reasons but because they simply believe it is cleanlier. And so sin and masturbation are not considerations for them. Plus, it reduces the risk of STDs in men

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15593753/

and the passing on of STDs to women

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060213102949.htm

Its origins are completely religious.
Let's not have a mindless knee-jerk reaction to anything and everything with a religious origin.

80. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116376 by Mango on January 26, 2008 at 10:54 am

jkr87 Saying you're okay with MGM means you're also okay with a similar procedure being done on girls.


Is there really an equivalence to be drawn between the two procedures? For females the procedure involves intense physical pain, emotional and physical scaring, potential damage to reproductivity, decline in sexual desire, so on and so forth. The two procedures share the name "circumcision" but are in many salient respects different, and reasonable people acknowledge this when they have their male child circumcised yet speak out vociferously against female circumcision.

To say that I condone getting a baby's ears pierced does not ipso facto mean I must also condone getting her clitoris, nose, or navel pierced to remain logically consistent. So it is between males and females and this matter.

81. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116351 by Mango on January 26, 2008 at 9:45 am

I don't view male circumcision as "child abuse" or a "barbaric practice." Maybe some atheists abhor it because of a knee-jerk reaction to anything that has has a conspicuous religious origin. To paint male circumcision in such a dramatic fashion serves to trivialize female circumcision, which is much more important to eradicate.

"But what about the child's right to decline a completely aesthetic, unnecessary mutilation?" If someone argues that, I'd contest the word mutilation. Is getting your child's otherwise healthy teeth clamped down by metal to align them not also a kind of mutilation? How about getting that fully-formed extra digit removed? Both of those examples are purely aesthetic, and so it is with male circumcision when performed by professional health service workers.

And what about a child's right not to be raised in a crime and drug ridden neighborhood? There are worthier fights to engage in than male circumcision and I'm sorry to see such energies wasted towards arguing against it.

82. Death Sentence for Afghan Student

Comment #115257 by Mango on January 23, 2008 at 8:02 pm

I thought the US invasion was supposed kick out the Taleban and their primitive sense of justice? Oh, nevermind. It's all of Islam.

83. Top 10 Reasons to Believe Logic Over Religion

Comment #114486 by Mango on January 22, 2008 at 9:43 am

Ron Paul? Get real, the man is a racist, homophobe, and misogynist. He's disproof of God in that if there's a loving God, why did he create Ron Paul.

Check out The New Republic's review of his newsletters in which he spews hate himself or doesn't disown it in his name over a period of many years.
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e2f15397-a3c7-4720-ac15-4532a7da84ca

84. Richard Dawkins on 'Have Your Say'

Comment #104763 by Mango on December 29, 2007 at 11:37 am

Autographed photos for sale would be appreciated. I'd buy two, and be happy to do so as a way to fund the Foundation.

85. For the Love of Christ

Comment #101756 by Mango on December 20, 2007 at 10:28 pm

He reminds me of the guys you'd sometime see on TV who, with strength from Jesus, would break handcuffs or tear in half telephone books. Very entertaining stuff.

86. Three wise men just legend: archbishop

Comment #101251 by Mango on December 20, 2007 at 6:32 am


Stars simply don't behave like that, he told the BBC during an interview.


He sounds reasonable when he affirms that the Bible is not an account of actual events, yet unreasonable when he believes those events anyway. Frustrating to read.

87. Christopher Hitchens appears on the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show

Comment #99590 by Mango on December 17, 2007 at 6:25 am

This is not from August as said in comment 13, it's from this month because it mentions the Omaha shooting and the new intelligence report on Iran.

88. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #94321 by Mango on December 5, 2007 at 9:35 am

I went to the Catholic League's website to explore and saw that Dinesh D'Souza is on the Board of Advisors. The world makes sense to me now.

[You might know the organization from its front-man, blow-hard Bill Donahue]

89. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93877 by Mango on December 4, 2007 at 11:20 am

Well, steve99, you can take from my message what I intended, that there might be a cult of personality forming. Or you can just keep telling me to "relax." But I do think some people devour everything Dr. Dawkins writes and his opinions, uncritically, become their own, and this ought to be acknowledged and discouraged.

90. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93872 by Mango on December 4, 2007 at 11:12 am

steve99: Agreeing with someone is not always an indication of 'cultishness'.


I concur, agreement with someone certainly doesn't equal 'cultishness.' But when Dr. Dawkins writes a rambling, contentious piece and after 300+ posts about it someone merely writes, "I agree with every word" it does send to my nose a whiff of something worrying. Call it cultishness or don't, but it's something to be aware of.

91. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93869 by Mango on December 4, 2007 at 11:02 am

Steve99,

Obviously not everyone who posts here is in the same state of mind, but some do exhibit hero-worship tendencies. Maybe this article has drawn the distinction among them.

92. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93860 by Mango on December 4, 2007 at 10:40 am

jameshg: I agree with every word.


There might be something after all to the worries others have expressed about a "cult of Dawkins."

93. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93660 by Mango on December 3, 2007 at 9:01 pm

Dr. Marty Klein, when discussing the naturalness of monogamy and polyamory, used the same quote as Dr. Dawkins from "The African Queen." However, Dr. Klein preceded Dr. Dawkins by a year. Poor form, Dr. Dawkins.


[Hear Dr. Klein on the podcast of the Humanist Network News from 11/29/2006, which you can obtain free through iTunes]
Transcript is here:
http://humaniststudies.org/enews/?id=277&article=1

94. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93365 by Mango on December 2, 2007 at 11:00 pm

Dr. Dawkins writes that it's obvious we can love more than one person romantically since we love many different wines and foods. I'm uncomfortable equating how I relate to inanimate objects to how I relate to other people, and I think someone who isn't might be a sociopath.

He also uses children as an example -- we love all our kids, not just one of them. As if it that glib insight is supposed to translate, just so simply, to romantic relationships. Why does he not immediately notice the profound psychological differences between those two classes of relationships?

Dr. Dawkins utterly fails to acknowledge the emotional and psychological complexity of loving, sexual relationships when he speaks about wine and children rather than pair-bonds, trust, emotional dependence, et cetera.

95. Atheism's Wrong Turn

Comment #93282 by Mango on December 2, 2007 at 3:13 pm

Well, Janus, I think I know what you're saying about theists not appearing to really seek truth. Genuine truth-seekers aren't taking leaps-of-faith about the nature of reality. But how I imagine it is that there are two parallel roads heading in the same direction; one is traveled by theists and the other by rationalists. This creates a level playing field, so to speak, to interact as equals. When I speak with a theist my effort is to divert this person from Faith Road onto Rationality Road. If you refuse to create or accept any common ground, it is to your own detriment when (or if ever) you try to productively communicate with a theist.

96. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93271 by Mango on December 2, 2007 at 2:52 pm

Dr. McGrath at least seems to be genuine in his arguments, and a decent fellow to share a glass of Scotland's finest export with. Contrast that with D'Souza as you will.

97. Atheism's Wrong Turn

Comment #93254 by Mango on December 2, 2007 at 2:12 pm

Janus: I doubt Sagan believed what he said.


If you've read "The Demon Haunted World," or at all aware of Dr. Sagan's career, then you know he was keenly interested in opening up people's minds to the wonders of the universe. I have no doubt that he truly wanted atheists and theists to find common ground, even in a sense as vague as truth-seeking. I have spoken to many theists -- every other Tuesday I set up an atheist station at my university's Student Union and talk to them. They do seek truth, and some have an open mind to what I say, others are closed off, apparently content with their revealed "Truth." I can tell you that Dr. Sagan's sage advice does help me communicate -- when I speak to theists with respect and an obvious eagerness to *understand* them they reciprocate and even if they do not abandon their faith they at least become aware that not all atheists are elitist or fire-breathing.

98. Atheism's Wrong Turn

Comment #93244 by Mango on December 2, 2007 at 1:48 pm

The author's observation that atheists often fail to seek common ground with a believer before engaging in dialog is something I've noticed as well. Carl Sagan addresses it in "The Demon Haunted World." He writes that believers and non-believers alike are searching for truth, and in that effort our common ground lies.

there aren't nearly enough unbelievers to leave a significant mark on the nation's culture or politics as a whole.


Does the American Jewish lobby influence America's politics? Yes. There are more agnostics/atheists than Jews. QED

99. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93238 by Mango on December 2, 2007 at 1:30 pm

Reflecting on the debate, I think Dennett's style was perfectly suited to butt heads with D'Souza. Dennett spoke to him calmly, looked at him almost beseechingly as he spoke. He was reflective and calm. What this did was to make D'Souza look like a caricature of himself, which really was annoying and unconvincing. Combined with the D'Souza's usual obfuscation and tortured logic Dennett clearly came out of the debate looking distinguished and intellectually superior.

100. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92977 by Mango on December 1, 2007 at 9:15 pm

empyrean: he has not given us a reason to care/waste time on contemplating, revering, praying and worshiping towards this very vague "first cause" God.


Yes, and a questioner called his hand on that very issue -- how does he leap from a "first cause" deistic god to the God of Abraham. His response was, shall we say, tortured.

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